This is a list of encrypted books. Its purpose is to catalog all encrypted books that are known. For the definition of an encrypted book refer to the end of this page. If you know an encrypted book that is not listed here I would be interested to learn about it. If you have information that might answer the open research questions mentioned with each book I would be interested, as well.

Ancient Mysteries

Author: unknown, probably a member of the Association of Maiden Unity and Attachment

Creation time: 1835

Location: Only known copy is located in the British Library, London (Shelfmark 4783.a.30).

Page scans:

Open research questions:

Encryption has been solved but no decrypted version is available

Who was the author?

Do other copies exist?

Literature:

Klaus Schmeh: Codeknacker gegen Codemacher (3rd edition), W3L 2014

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13186753

Mysteries of Vesta

ID: 00007

Status: broken

Broken by:

Number of pages: 61

Content: Manifest of the Association of Maiden Unity and Attachment (part 2)

Author: unknown, probably a member of the Association of Maiden Unity and Attachment

Creation time: 1850

Location: Only known copy is located in the British Library, London (Shelfmark 944.c.19).

Page scans:

Open research questions:

Encryption has been solved but no decrypted version is available

Who was the author?

Do other copies exist?

Literature:

Klaus Schmeh: Codeknacker gegen Codemacher (3rd edition), W3L 2014

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13186753

Codex Igo

ID: 00008

Status: broken

Broken by:

Number of pages: 470

Content: Collection of prayers in English and Latin (only parts of the book are translated), the encryption method used is the same (or similar) to the one used in Fabian Humphrey’s Prayer Book (00043).

Author: probably Fabian Humphrey (the author is not named but the similarity with Fabian Humphrey’s prayer book suggests that it was written by the same person)

Creation time: 1571 (on one of the last pages “April 1571” is noted, which is assumed to be the creation time)

Location: British Library, London (Sloane 1360)

Page scans:

Open research questions:

Encryption has been solved but no completely decrypted version is available

William Byrd’s Diary

Content: diary of William Byrd (planter, slave-owner and author from Virginia)

Author: Colonel William Byrd II (1674-1744)

Creation time: 1709-1712, 1717-1721, 1739-1741

Location: ????

Page scans:

Open research questions:

Page scans should be made available.

Literature:

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Byrd_II

David Kahn: The Codebreakers (1996), p. 777

Baron Hailsham’s Diary

ID: 00027

Status: broken

Broken by:

Number of pages: ????

Content: diary of British politician Quintin Hogg (Baron Hailsham)

Author: Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (1907-2001)

Creation time: ca.1970 – ca. 1974

Location: Margaret Thatcher Foundation

Page scans:

Open research questions:

Page scans should be made available?

Literature: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/hailsham.asp

Ashmole Cryptogram

ID: 00028

Status: broken

Broken by: Kurt Josten

Number of pages: ?

Content: Includes notes on the creation of sigils and letters from Thomas Hyde offering information on talismans extracted from manuscripts at Oxford. It is also peppered with ritual magic operations and ritual additions to the making of sigils. This manuscript gives the impression that Ashmole was mining astrological image magic texts for magic that worked, and that practical application and experiment, more than the preservation of prior intellectual traditions, drove his activities (source: Klaassen 2013). Five and a half pages are encrypted.

Anne Lister’s diary

ID: 00034

Status: broken

Broken by:

Number of pages: 6,600 (27 volumes)

Content: diary of landowner, mountaineer and traveller Anne Lister (1791-1840); about a sixth of the content is encrypted in a substitution code of Lister’s own devising combining letters from Greek and algebra

19th century sailor’s diary

Criteria

This list catalogs encrypted books. A document qualifies as encrypted if it has been coded for secrecy (or at least this must be a plausible hypothesis). A document is considered a book if the content is typical for a book (e.g. diary, memoirs, novel, law collection), or if the document has the appearance of a book. This list contains books that are completely encrypted as well as books in which significant parts (e.g. several pages) are encrypted.

Rev. Jonathan Fisher (1767-1847), a Maine minister who devised his own phonetic code and recorded all his sermons and diaries in it: http://www.jonathanfisherhouse.org/

‘The receipt book of Elizabeth Raper; and a portion of her cipher journal’ – this is a printed book (publ. Nonsuch Press1924) and contains no images of the cipher. It is presumably still kept by the Grant family – Great great grandson Bartlett Grant and his son Duncan Grant were responsible for the book.

The female Confederate spy Rose O’Neale Greenhow kept a diary that was believed to be written in code. However, it turned out to be bad penmanship.

Day Joyce’s diary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Joyce_Sheet): is not really a diary and is not encrypted

Quilt diary: Contains only a few encrypted lines. Description: “A silk and ribbon cot quilt from Deal Castle (1690-1720) is shown for the first time with portraits of the children who slept beneath it and the maker’s diary written in code, which reveals political intrigue and family life in the 18th century.” Information from the V&A Museum: The diary is actually written in a variation of shorthand rather than code, and is not actually in the V&A collection – it was loaned to them from a private collection for the duration of a 2010 exhibition of quilts. There is a chapter about it and the cot quilt in the catalogue from that exhibition, which is available in the National Art Library located at the V&A. Registering as a reader can be done via the website, and is free, but it is usually advisable to request books at least one day in advance.

http://culturalmormoncafeteria.blogspot.de/search/label/Cipher

Protokollbuch des studentischen Constantistenordens (Neremberg): Only small parts are encrypted.

We are happy to report that a number of sections of Joseph Rosseel’s Diary have now been solved. This refers primarily to the “War News sections”, though we have also some decryptions among personal notes and gossip from Europe but the main war news areas uncovered so far concern:

1. Reporting on the capture of the USS Essex by English ships HMS Cerub and HMS Phoebe and the relative gun strengths deployed in this battle (at Valparaiso on March 28, 1814 but reported months later in the diary)

2. News of US General Jacob Browns victory at Chippawa on 5 July 1814 and President Madison’s militia levy of 93,500 men on July 14.

3. A report on the full complement of an English regiment encountered during the siege of Fort Erie in August 1814.

4. The news that the English had captured Washington on August 24, 1814 and notes about the number of prisoners and negotiations.

Similar to the so called “Chaumont letter” from 1817, the system in the diary is Thevenot’s tachygrafie. So excellent progress but still many pages of secrets for interested persons to work on: open offer. And again thanks for the helpful suggestions.

[…] seen “Written Mnemonics” mentioned in a number of places (most notably in Klaus Schmeh’s online list of encrypted books), but had never seen it up close and personal, even though it was quite a well-known historical […]

Can you tell me the name of the breaker of the British Library Additional MS 10035 cipher (“The Subtelty of Witches,” 1657)? I’m interested in writing a study of the manuscript and its text, and would like to include the information!

Along the base of each page in each of the Artemis Fowl Novels by Eoin Colfer are strange runes. Colfer even challenges the reader to try and work out what the secret messages are hidden in the “Fowl” runes. Not on the list yet.